I can't tell you how happy that makes me that Tracy Chapman is of good quality. Every once in a while I'll hear one of her songs and think "damn I bet that'd sound good on a good system" but then get distracted before I get around to buying it.

I knew Suzanne Vega's brother. If you're familiar with Blues Traveler's smoking cat logo, IIRC he is the one that drew it.

Edit: Somehow my previous post disappeared. I thanked Murph because I love celtic music, and I mentioned that while Afterglow (Sarah McLachlan) was once a demo I used during amp selection, I find that the overall quality of the recording pales compared to a bunch of others that I have. (Sure beats the crap out of the Ingrid disc though.)

We used the "Fast Car" track from the Tracy Chapman album for many years of loudspeaker blind listening tests at the National Research Council in Ottawa. It was one of our standard test tracks and I think Dr. Sean Olive still uses it at Harman's listening facility in L.A.

The a cappella version of "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega from the Solitude Standing album was one of the standard test selections for audio codec listening tests in Canada, the U.K. and Australia. I participated in the Ottawa tests for several days. If the data rate went below 320 kbps with virtually all of the lossy codecs, her voice would get a bit metallic and sibilant sounding. That track was very revealing of compression artifacts.

Try Marta Gomez 'Entre Cada Palabra' if you like South American jazz. Try Sophie Milman 'Take Love Easy' for straight vocal jazz. Or I like Dave's True Story 'Unauthorized' for funky offbeat but very nice female vocals. All are on HDtracks.